Slovenia: How to turn a mediocre free weekly into a successful free daily

Posted by Lauren Drablier on October 10, 2008 at 8:49 AM

Two years ago the directors of Slovenian free weekly, Zurnal decided to "change the game" with regards to their paper in order to attract more readers. The paper was suffering from declining readership and poor circulation numbers. They decided to produce three new products based on a multi-platform model in one newsroom.

First, free daily Zurnal24 was created and distributed on the street on weekdays with a circulation of 110,000. Zuman24 was designed to target the young, active and mobile reader. Its main features are short and it is only 32 pages in length. Second, the weekend edition of Zurnal was created and distributed to households with a circulation of 290,000. The weekend paper is 64 pages and covers a wide range of topics including local news items and opinions. Third, zurnal24.si was created and designed for audiences 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The Website, zurnal24.si attracts users with high quality video games. In total the video games were downloaded by 150,000 users, and played online 16 million times, keeping in mind that Slovenia only has a population of two million. The popularity of the video games allowed zurnal24.si to increase advertising revenue.

After one year of this model, Zurnal has the biggest market share of all Slovenian newspapers and the second highest readership. The daily version is read by 22% of the population and the weekend edition by 50% of the population. In six months, Zurnal24 has doubled its number of unique visitors and is the fastest growing web portal in Slovenia.

Sources: Forum 4 Editors